美国国家公共电台 NPR Academy Chooses Bob Dylan As Unlikely Choice For Nobel Literature Prize

Academy Chooses Bob Dylan As Unlikely Choice For Nobel Literature Prize

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When Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature this morning, he joined a lineage that includes Harold Pinter, Thomas Mann and Toni Morrison. NPR's Neda Ulaby looks at how Dylan fits into this group.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE²: In 1965, Bob Dylan was asked at a press conference if he saw himself more as a singer or a poet.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

BOB DYLAN: I think of myself more as song and dance man, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

ULABY: Still, the Swedish Academy honored him and - its words - for creating new poetic³ expressions within the great American song tradition. The academy's secretary compared Dylan to Homer and Sappho for poems...

SARA DANIUS: ...That were meant to be listened to. They were meant to be performed, often together with instruments.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE")

ULABY: Dylan's poetry is timeless, says Bill Wyman. He's a writer who a few years ago made a case for Dylan winning the Nobel Literature Prize in The New York Times.

BILL WYMAN: There's "Like A Rolling Stone."

DYLAN: (Singing) You're invisible now you've got no secrets to conceal⁴.

WYMAN: We look at that 50 years later, and we think - doesn't that describe someone who's online? We're invisible, we don't see each other, and yet we have no secrets because we've lost all our privacy. And again and again, his words just - there's a whip crack across decades.

ULABY: Dylan brought high poetic traditions into the popular vernacular⁵. He was influenced by the French symbolists, the beats, the song book of Woody Guthrie and the rural musicians he claimed to have met, as he told an interviewer on public radio station WNYC in 1961.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, can you read music?

(SOUNDBITE OF WNYC BROADCAST)

DYLAN: No, I can't, but this here song's a good example. I learned from a farmer in South Dakota. And he played the autoharp. His name's Wilbur - (singing) was old farmer that lived in the county nearby.

ULABY: Just consider, says Bill Wyman, the scope of Bob Dylan's lyrical canon for the past 50 years.

DYLAN: (Singing) The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

WYMAN: Everything from "Blowing In The Wind," which is a very simple folk parable⁶ to "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," which is a sprawling⁷, almost Dantean look at everything from nuclear war to families and journeys and reinventing oneself.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL")

DYLAN: (Singing) I'm a-going back out before the rain starts a-falling. I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest.

ULABY: Bob Dylan told NPR in 2004 what it means to have so many people take so much from his music.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

DYLAN: I don't pay any attention to it anymore, so I was trying to reconstruct the feeling of what it does feel like to have anything like that thrown at you, where you're expected to be something that you just flat-out know you're not.

ULABY: Even at the age of 75, Bob Dylan still performs constantly - close to a hundred concerts a year. If you want to see him December 10, it might help to be in Stockholm, where Bob Dylan will be awarded his Nobel Prize. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STANDING⁸ IN THE DOORWAY")

DYLAN: (Singing) There are things I could say, but I don't. I know the mercy of God must be near. I've been riding the midnight train. I've got ice water in my veins⁹. I would crazy if I took...

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

4 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

5 vernacular   

adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名

参考例句：

• The house is built in a vernacular style.这房子按当地的风格建筑。
• The traditional Chinese vernacular architecture is an epitome of Chinese traditional culture.中国传统民居建筑可谓中国传统文化的缩影。

6 parable   

n.寓言，比喻

参考例句：

• This is an ancient parable.这是一个古老的寓言。
• The minister preached a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep.牧师讲道时用了亡羊的比喻。

7 sprawling   

adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawling in an armchair in front of the TV. 他伸开手脚坐在电视机前的一张扶手椅上。
• a modern sprawling town 一座杂乱无序拓展的现代城镇

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》